Functional benefit of power training for older adults

Aging leads to significant losses in muscle mass, strength, and the ability to independently perform activities of daily living (ADL). Typically, standard resistance training (RT) has been used to reduce these losses in function by maintaining or even increasing muscle strength in older adults. Incr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of aging and physical activity 2007-07, Vol.15 (3), p.349-359
Main Authors: Hazell, Tom, Kenno, Kenji, Jakobi, Jennifer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities of Daily Living
Aged
Aging
Exercise - physiology
Exercise Movement Techniques
Functional performance
Humans
Muscle Strength
Muscular Atrophy - prevention & control
Older people
Power
Resistance
Sarcopenia
Strength training
Weight-Bearing
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Summary:Aging leads to significant losses in muscle mass, strength, and the ability to independently perform activities of daily living (ADL). Typically, standard resistance training (RT) has been used to reduce these losses in function by maintaining or even increasing muscle strength in older adults. Increasing strength does not necessarily, however, result in an increase in the ability to perform ADL. There is now research suggesting that muscle power is more closely associated with the performance of ADL than muscle strength is, so training for muscle power might lead to more beneficial results in functional performance. This review of studies investigating the effect of training on ADL performance in older adults indicated that standard RT is effective in increasing strength in older adults, but power training that contains high-velocity contractions might be a more optimal means of training older adults when the emphasis is on increasing the performance of ADL.
ISSN:1063-8652
1543-267X
DOI:10.1123/japa.15.3.349